A season like this where they're trying to already put Florida in the NCG against Oklahoma (or someone else) ironically reminds me of a tennis video game (you may be thinking "Tennis? On a football question?" a little confused, but it does relate), it's based on Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Bowser, and all them but it has a long plot leading up to that, and eventually in the Island Open (the big tourney where it actually is a playoff, if that game was like college football Elroy and Dweezil would have been voted into the final, but Willy and Clay (your character) beat those guys heading up). The top guy from your academy, Elroy and the top guy from another school, Dweezil faced each other the last year, and Elroy barely lost. Everyone thought going in that it was almost assuredly going to be a match between Elroy and Dweezil again. Florida and Oklahoma are Dweezil and Elroy. Dweezil is a bit of a punk who refuses to talk to "rookies" while Elroy reminds you of one of those Ivy League blue blood intellectuals that always tries to act aristocratic at all times, but he's actually likeable (his tennis partner, and probably girlfriend, Tori, however, is not). And then Willy (little brother of some famous tennis players from an earlier version of the game) comes along and knocks off Dweezil, and then everyone's saying that Elroy will face Willy in the end. And then you beat Elroy (probably again, since you likely stole his captainhood, after which he walks around and sighs for a minute before deciding that everything is alright because he's still in the tourney). After which, Elroy is kind of sad but offers a bunch of encouraging words before you beat Willy and then get to play Mario and them. Willy's the kind of guy who's confident in his abilities and very focused but he's just focused on having a good time and facing a good challenge. It'd be nice if we had more athletes like that in the real world, but I digress.
I know the long spiel about a tennis videogame seems strange in a football question, but if you look at the parallels, last year's winners are already being projected and hyped into playing each other. This looks like the perfect year for two teams that haven't won it for awhile, or even a couple rookies like Clay and Willy to crash the party. I know Penn State isn't a rookie, but the media perceives them as a bit of a Clay or a Willy, and Penn State could be facing some other "rookie" or rather, perceived rookie. Or it could really be someone who isn't that experienced with being in the big picture makes it to the big dance. This looks like the kind of season for Penn State and someone else to play for all the marbles. I don't see it being USC, they'll lose to someone in-conference, and I could see Florida having a hiccup (yeah, they beat Charleston Southern 62-3, we beat Coastal Carolina 66-10 last year and sadly we didn't win it all, change one play from the TT game and the Iowa game and PSU likely beats Texas for all the marbles). I'm not saying this is going to happen, but this is a perfect setup for the "seeds" up top to get knocked off one by one and for two teams not expected to be in the big dance to be there. Again, don't get your hopes up too much, but I've seen this happen before in video games and in real life. It'd be cool if this actually happened, though.
I hate sports commentators too. Last year they wrote a sad farewell to teams who got knocked out of the NCG picture, and then when PSU loses, a snarky "Bye, bye, Penn State". To be honest, I think the Rose Bowl was the national championship game last year, but just not officially. It was the #1 team (USC) against the #3 team (PSU) so to me, that's a good NCG. Only way it'd have been better is if Utah faced USC. I know I got it wrong about Utah, I thought they'd be splattered, but they did the splattering. Nice to see a huge crack in the BCS system.
By the way, download those videos while you can as proof that to Big XII and SEC fanboys that the sports commentators are more fickle than a 13 year old girl who obsesses over boys.
But I like our chances in the Ohio State vs Penn State rivalry game, not just because of the Navy game, but I knew coming into the season that Ohio State is rebuilding, not reloading this year. Max from APPoll.com (one of the best commentators out there and the most PSU-friendly I know of, he picked us to win by 18 over OSU last year btw) said that every now and then you have to take the gun apart and clean it thoroughly. I expect Ohio State to have 8-9 wins this year, and we won't have to share the crown with them (which I'll like). Ohio State looks like they have the raw ingredients for a good team, but I think this year, they're missing a lot of key elements (they looked lost against Navy at times, though, kind of concerning).